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Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

Originally Posted by Benvolio

Remember, this question only arises because the Congress, President and Court previous swept aside the Constitution. The powers of the Federal Government are severely limited by the Constitution, and there is nothing which remotely suggests that Congress has power to require employers to make the gift of contraception to employees.

It isn't a gift. It is part of the wage and benefits package that increasingly poorly paid workers in the US are entitled to as part of their contract to provide labour in order to make corporations obscenely rich.

Only in an uneducated imagination would health care be viewed as a 'Gift'.

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

Originally Posted by rareboy

It isn't a gift. It is part of the wage and benefits package that increasingly poorly paid workers in the US are entitled to as part of their contract to provide labour in order to make corporations obscenely rich.

Only in an uneducated imagination would health care be viewed as a 'Gift'.

Birth control is not health care, since pregnancy is not an illness, but is consistent with perfect health. It is a gift to prospective voters at the expense of the employers.

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

Originally Posted by T-Rexx

The RFRA was never intended to apply to for-profit corporations. The law states “Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.”

When it was passed, nobody could have imagined that the Supreme Court would turn corporations into "exercisers of religion."

(And, BTW, almost every Republican in both House and Senate also voted for the bill).

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

I really don't understand why so many knowledgeable people don't seem to understand what RFRA says. The bottom line is this, when a law infringes on religious belief the state has to show two things, IF the law is challenged:
1. That the state has a compelling interest in the objective of the law. This sets a higher standard for the state, the state cannot just impose this law because it wants to, it has to show that the law serves a real and needed public purpose.

2. The state has to apply the law in a way that is the LEAST intrusive on the religious beliefs involved.

The only way a law is overturned here is if its an unimportant law. Civil rights laws, public safety laws, public health laws all will PASS the compelling interest test. RFRA is a federal statute so it CANNOT overrule a constitutional law or challenge. So none of these horror stories people are inventing will happen. Even the one example T-Rexx pulled up was something that was going to happen anyway even without this ruling.

The outcome of the ruling is Hobby Lobby and like businesses will get the same deal that the non-profits got or the government will just take up the cost of providing contraception and Hobby Lobby's employees will still get coverage without cost.

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

No. Liberals want a free and open press not under the control of the State nor any private interest. That's not communism. That is democracy.

What you want is 6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands Corporations. That's not conservatism. That is Fascism.

If you really wanted a free and open press you would support Net Neutrality.

No, liberals want to exclude advocates for free enterprise, by picking and choosing who is allowed to spend money in political speech. Business corporations NO. NYTimes, MSNBC, NBC, Wash Post, and their sponsors, FINE. Liberals are the only ones trying to limit speech.

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

Originally Posted by Benvolio

Corporations are groups of people. Yes, groups, including corporations have consciences. If you insist, then you must admit, corporations have no greed, no bad intentions, no selfishness, no discriminatory intent, etc. They are as pure as the driven snow, on the same reasoning that deprives then of consciences.

The Democratic National Committee, a corporation, has no conscience, No beliefs, no good intentions, no benevolent feelings, no good thoughts.

Of course it does not. Only the people who run it have those things.

Originally Posted by Benvolio

Hogwash. The laws and constitutions give rights to corporations, so they do have rights. The statutes, articles of incorporation and by-laws provide that the officers and boards are elected by the majority and thereafter speak for and govern the corporation. Dissenting shareholders can always sell their interests if they disagree.

Exactly. "...the officers and boards are elected by the majority and thereafter speak for and govern the corporation." The people who run corporations are the people who speak for it - because a corporation cannot speak for itself, any more than it can worship a god.

Originally Posted by Benvolio

So, I assume you would agree that NYTimes, NTSNB, Wash Post, should be outlawed? Clearly they should not allowed to express opinions. But they also should not be allowed to report news since the selection of particular stories and the reporting of them is easily slanted to influence voters. Or perhaps we need government monitors (one from each party) to review all proposed news statements to ensure absolute impartiality?

The views any media outlet expresses are those of the people who run it. The people who run it are allowed to speak. The people who run any corporation are allowed to speak on behalf of their interests in the corporate entities they control.

They are not permitted, however, to force their employees, in their private lives, to express only the opinions of the company's owners. And they should not be permitted to force their employees, in their private lives, to obey the religious beliefs of the company's owners.

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

Originally Posted by T-Rexx

They are not permitted, however, to force their employees, in their private lives, to express only the opinions of the company's owners. And they should not be permitted to force their employees, in their private lives, to obey the religious beliefs of the company's owners.

I'm not aware of anyone involved with this case was attempting to do that. Hobby Lobby was not telling its employees what contraceptives they had to use, they only objected to paying for kinds of contraceptives they objected to. Nor does this ruling prevent the government from providing all the free coverage that the HHS calls for, they just have to use the alternate compromise they used for non-profits or pay for it directly. So how is the employees private lives being dictated here?

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

Originally Posted by rareboy

It isn't a gift. It is part of the wage and benefits package that increasingly poorly paid workers in the US are entitled to as part of their contract

This may also be the only nation on Earth (is it?) that has any kind of federally-recognized healthcare system at all, AND it is run for profit. Huge, obscene profit. Does such a healthcare system exist anywhere else on Earth?

Originally Posted by cityboy-stl

What you want is 6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands Corporations. That's not conservatism. That is Fascism.

If you really wanted a free and open press you would support Net Neutrality.

^^TRUTH^^

Net Neutrality is the last remaining firewall between the current status of the media, and unbridled total fascism.

Originally Posted by Stardreamer

Hobby Lobby and like businesses will get the same deal that the non-profits got or the government will just take up the cost of providing contraception and Hobby Lobby's employees will still get coverage without cost.

Do you REALLY think that providing that cost would ever make it through a filibuster, not to mention a Republican House?

Originally Posted by Stardreamer

Conservative: a person who is enamored with all the existing EVILS of government and wishes to preserve them as opposed to a Liberal who wishes to replace them with all new EVILS.

Some truth to that, for certain! But it's also true that some evils are worse than others...

"Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking." -The Scarecrow, WIZARD OF OZ, 1939Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education, to under-performing schools: DROP DEAD.Make, for a man, a fire - and he'll be warm for a few hours. Set a man afire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.Satire is meant to ridicule power. If you are laughing at people who are hurting, it's not satire, it's bullying. - Terry Pratchett

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

Originally Posted by frankfrank

Do you REALLY think that providing that cost would ever make it through a filibuster, not to mention a Republican House?

The non-profit's compromise was not passed through the house, indeed the entire requirement that employers cover all 20 forms of contraception was a regulation set by HHS, not the congress. If no other option presents itself then they will have to fall back to the non-profit solution of passing the costs to the insurance companies with tax breaks to cover the cost.

If there is no solution then the government can simply say that they have presented the least intrusive solution BUT there is a solution as the court has noted in the non-profit compromise.

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

Originally Posted by Stardreamer

I'm not aware of anyone involved with this case was attempting to do that. Hobby Lobby was not telling its employees what contraceptives they had to use, they only objected to paying for kinds of contraceptives they objected to.

No, Hobby Lobby is deciding what contraceptives their employees may have access to.

Religions have always had an "exemption" from the Obamacare mandate to provide contraceptive coverage. It's not really an "exemption" - their employees must still have the option for contraceptive coverage. But the law allows religions to sign a form, turning over responsibility for the contraceptive coverage to the insurance companies they have contracted to provide health insurance for their employees. In theory, this lets the religions off the hook for responsibility for the sin of allowing their employees to avoid unwanted pregnancies.

SCOTUS ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby's request to be exempted from the contraception mandate on the grounds that Hobby Lobby, a for-profit corporation, was also a religion qualifying for the religious "exemption." There is a problem with this - Hobby Lobby is self-insured. The company does not have a third party insurance carrier to which it can sign off on responsibility for paying for contraceptives. But, SCOTUS decided that because alternative funding for contraceptives was "possible" (by some unspecified mechanism) in the community for Hobby Lobby employees, the company deserved to be let off the hook on religious grounds. That is to say, SCOTUS believes it should still be possible for Hobby Lobby employees to get their contraceptives paid by "someone," and therefore the company (and others like it) should be allowed the religious exemption. There is another problem with this, however, and that is that it is unclear who will pay for contraceptives for Hobby Lobby employees. Sure, it is possible for the federal government to pay for this, but there is currently no provision or mechanism for doing this. Obamacare is private insurance. Indeed, Obama negotiated away the public option under Obamacare in an attempt to appease Republicans, for which he got absolutely nothing. And it is inconceivable that a Republican House will pass legislation to fund contraception.

There is yet another problem with this situation. The Hobby Lobby decision came down from SCOTUS on Monday, 6/30/14. The fundamental basis of that decision was that religions (i.e., Hobby Lobby) were exempt from covering contraceptives only to the extent that alternative funding for contraception must surely be available from other sources - by, for example, transferring responsibility for the coverage to a third party. On Thursday, 7/3/14, in the Wheaton College decision, the court decided that the transfer of authority for coverage of contraceptives by a religious employer to a third party was itself a violation of the religious rights of the religious employer. (Wheaton College was complaining that transfer of authority to a third party made it complicit in the sin of contraception, and it could not, in good conscience, do such a thing),

On Monday, Alito promised that the Hobby Lobby decision was a "narrow" ruling that would not apply outside the (possibly) small number of companies that SCOTUS had decided were also churches. He promised that it did not mean that Hobby Lobby employees would not have access to birth control coverage from someone. On Thursday, with Wheaton College, SCOTUS overturned the Hobby Lobby decision and expanded its consequences considerably. On Thursday, SCOTUS decided that religions (again, now including companies like Hobby Lobby) need not make any provision whatsoever to allow their employees to have access to birth control.

It took three days for Justice Ginsburgr's prediction (in her dissent on Hobby Lobby) to come true. She argued that Alito's assurances of a narrow decision in Hobby Lobby were certain to be trashed, and she was right. Sotomayor wrote scathingly in dissent of Wheaton College:

"Those who are bound by our decisions usually believe they can take us at our word. Not so today."

- Sonia Sotomayor

Sotomayor drew upon a lower court opinion in trying to explain the Hobby Lobby/Wheaton College debacle. She said it is like a Quaker being drafted into military service asking for an exemption on religious grounds. Then, having been granted the exemption, the Quaker objects to his own exemption on the grounds that someone else will be drafted to take his place, a fact which is also unacceptable to him.

Originally Posted by Stardreamer

Nor does this ruling prevent the government from providing all the free coverage that the HHS calls for, they just have to use the alternate compromise they used for non-profits or pay for it directly. So how is the employees private lives being dictated here?

Obamacare is private insurance, not public. There is no provision under Obamacare for providing free coverage for contraception. As you may recall, Obama gave up the public option under Obamacare in order to appease Republicans, for which he got nothing in return.

Contraceptive techniques can be quite expensive. An IUD would cost a month's salary for a typical Hobby Lobby employee. There are many medical conditions in which contraceptive pills are not appropriate, and for which an IUD is preferable. By refusing to cover contraception because of the religious beliefs of the owners, and by preventing employees from having access to other options, Hobby Lobby forces all of their employees to conform to their employer's religious mandates.

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

Originally Posted by T-Rexx

No, Hobby Lobby is deciding what contraceptives their employees may have access to.

Religions have always had an "exemption" from the Obamacare mandate to provide contraceptive coverage. It's not really an "exemption" - their employees must still have the option for contraceptive coverage. But the law allows religions to sign a form, turning over responsibility for the contraceptive coverage to the insurance companies they have contracted to provide health insurance for their employees. In theory, this lets the religions off the hook for responsibility for the sin of allowing their employees to avoid unwanted pregnancies.

SCOTUS ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby's request to be exempted from the contraception mandate on the grounds that Hobby Lobby, a for-profit corporation, was also a religion qualifying for the religious "exemption." There is a problem with this - Hobby Lobby is self-insured. The company does not have a third party insurance carrier to which it can sign off on responsibility for paying for contraceptives. But, SCOTUS decided that because alternative funding for contraceptives was "possible" (by some unspecified mechanism) in the community for Hobby Lobby employees, the company deserved to be let off the hook on religious grounds. That is to say, SCOTUS believes it should still be possible for Hobby Lobby employees to get their contraceptives paid by "someone," and therefore the company (and others like it) should be allowed the religious exemption. There is another problem with this, however, and that is that it is unclear who will pay for contraceptives for Hobby Lobby employees. Sure, it is possible for the federal government to pay for this, but there is currently no provision or mechanism for doing this. Obamacare is private insurance. Indeed, Obama negotiated away the public option under Obamacare in an attempt to appease Republicans, for which he got absolutely nothing. And it is inconceivable that a Republican House will pass legislation to fund contraception.

There is yet another problem with this situation. The Hobby Lobby decision came down from SCOTUS on Monday, 6/30/14. The fundamental basis of that decision was that religions (i.e., Hobby Lobby) were exempt from covering contraceptives only to the extent that alternative funding for contraception must surely be available from other sources - by, for example, transferring responsibility for the coverage to a third party. On Thursday, 7/3/14, in the Wheaton College decision, the court decided that the transfer of authority for coverage of contraceptives by a religious employer to a third party was itself a violation of the religious rights of the religious employer. (Wheaton College was complaining that transfer of authority to a third party made it complicit in the sin of contraception, and it could not, in good conscience, do such a thing),

On Monday, Alito promised that the Hobby Lobby decision was a "narrow" ruling that would not apply outside the (possibly) small number of companies that SCOTUS had decided were also churches. He promised that it did not mean that Hobby Lobby employees would not have access to birth control coverage from someone. On Thursday, with Wheaton College, SCOTUS overturned the Hobby Lobby decision and expanded its consequences considerably. On Thursday, SCOTUS decided that religions (again, now including companies like Hobby Lobby) need not make any provision whatsoever to allow their employees to have access to birth control.

It took three days for Justice Ginsburgr's prediction (in her dissent on Hobby Lobby) to come true. She argued that Alito's assurances of a narrow decision in Hobby Lobby were certain to be trashed, and she was right. Sotomayor wrote scathingly in dissent of Wheaton College:

Sotomayor drew upon a lower court opinion in trying to explain the Hobby Lobby/Wheaton College debacle. She said it is like a Quaker being drafted into military service asking for an exemption on religious grounds. Then, having been granted the exemption, the Quaker objects to his own exemption on the grounds that someone else will be drafted to take his place, a fact which is also unacceptable to him.

Obamacare is private insurance, not public. There is no provision under Obamacare for providing free coverage for contraception. As you may recall, Obama gave up the public option under Obamacare in order to appease Republicans, for which he got nothing in return.

Contraceptive techniques can be quite expensive. An IUD would cost a month's salary for a typical Hobby Lobby employee. There are many medical conditions in which contraceptive pills are not appropriate, and for which an IUD is preferable. By refusing to cover contraception because of the religious beliefs of the owners, and by preventing employees from having access to other options, Hobby Lobby forces all of their employees to conform to their employer's religious mandates.

The Wheaton College ruling is a temporary measure that is still not final AND does not say what you say it does.

But some of the colleges and organizations say that signing the form authorizes the third parties to provide the contraceptive coverage, making them complicit in actions that offend their religious beliefs.

The ruling Thursday says Wheaton need only file a letter with the federal government stating the college’s religious objections. Presumably, the government then would notify the third party to provide the contraceptives.

“Nothing in this interim order affects the ability of the applicant’s employees and students to obtain, without cost, the full range of FDA approved contraceptives,” the order said.

Basically saying that the paperwork process HHS was requiring for the exception was not necessary and all that was needed was a letter after which the government becomes responsible for the follow-up. Again the way the RFRA works, if the state has a compelling interest in the law in question, the exemption is DEPENDENT on there being a less intrusive means of applying it. The court has simply said that it appears to be possible to do this in a less intrusive way, but the process needs to be hammered out. So HHS needs to sit down and come up with a way to pay for the mandates it (not the ACA) established. If it can't do that then it will have to reengage with the court to prove that the current requirement IS the least intrusive method.

Last edited by Stardreamer; July 5th, 2014 at 09:18 PM.
Reason: Added link

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

I think the problem is just how much leeway do certain corporations get here.. which after the decision proved troublesome as a rash of other, more sweeping religious test cases appear to be coming up for the Court. Many of which would even fight third party coverage they would not directly have to provide... even gay rights. If this is what they want, the court would be out of line to rule for them. We need more people appointed to the Court who have no political agenda, right OR left. This should be the least politicized branch of government, to stop the excesses of the other branches... decisions to the greatest extent possible should be narrowly tailored to the law at hand. Instead each Presidential election we get both parties trying to push judges and decisions their activists are behind... a conservative or liberal court. How abut a court that keeps its decisions based on the Constitution rather than political outcomes? One where there aren't litmus tests, or deeply partisan battles every time.

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

This is the way of things in the courts, a decision is made on a major matter but it then requires several additional cases to work out the fine details. This one is going to be tough I think because everybody seems to be jumping to the extremes on interpreting its meaning even the court opposition itself which isn't helping matters in my viewpoint.

I agree the court should be the least political but the Founding Fathers knew that wasn't going to happen in reality so they gave us the next best thing in the appointment process rotating between the parties with the presidency and lifetime appointments to free them from the political rat race. The real problem has become the politicalization of the approval process in the congress. We can no long appoint the best and brightest of our legal minds, instead we have to dig around for political unknowns who can run the gauntlet.

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

Birth control is not health care, since pregnancy is not an illness, but is consistent with perfect health. It is a gift to prospective voters at the expense of the employers.

Birth control meds are used for other things. Hormonal imbalance, endometriosis (which can result in cancer) for example. While pregnancy is not an illness, complications can arise from it. There is no such thing as "perfect health". In order to generate a desirable net profit, there is a certain amount of anguish that employers must experience such as offering benefits. In an ideal Republicon world, there would be no employees.

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

Originally Posted by Benvolio

Liberals always try to silence those who disagree. if you silence those who speak for free enterprise/capitalism, you give a free hand to those who work for socialism/marxism/communism. Indeed, it is one of the 10 measures the Communist Manifesto says that communist regimes will have in common:" 6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State".
The liberal media are not going to speak for free enterprise, so silencing corporations will spell doom for the economy.

What "liberal media"? What we have are corporate media, whose interests lie with those of other corporations, telling us what corporations want us to believe so they can have their way with us.

BTW, do you really think that free enterprise is flourishing currently? I see very little; the big corporations are against it.

"Thirty-one* states allow all qualified citizens to carry concealed weapons. In those states, homosexuals should embark on organized efforts to become comfortable with guns, learn to use them safely and carry them. They should set up Pink Pistols task forces, sponsor shooting courses and help homosexuals get licensed to carry. And they should do it in a way that gets as much publicity as possible. "

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

Originally Posted by T-Rexx

There is yet another problem with this situation. The Hobby Lobby decision came down from SCOTUS on Monday, 6/30/14. The fundamental basis of that decision was that religions (i.e., Hobby Lobby) were exempt from covering contraceptives only to the extent that alternative funding for contraception must surely be available from other sources - by, for example, transferring responsibility for the coverage to a third party. On Thursday, 7/3/14, in the Wheaton College decision, the court decided that the transfer of authority for coverage of contraceptives by a religious employer to a third party was itself a violation of the religious rights of the religious employer. (Wheaton College was complaining that transfer of authority to a third party made it complicit in the sin of contraception, and it could not, in good conscience, do such a thing),

On Monday, Alito promised that the Hobby Lobby decision was a "narrow" ruling that would not apply outside the (possibly) small number of companies that SCOTUS had decided were also churches. He promised that it did not mean that Hobby Lobby employees would not have access to birth control coverage from someone. On Thursday, with Wheaton College, SCOTUS overturned the Hobby Lobby decision and expanded its consequences considerably. On Thursday, SCOTUS decided that religions (again, now including companies like Hobby Lobby) need not make any provision whatsoever to allow their employees to have access to birth control.

It took three days for Justice Ginsburgr's prediction (in her dissent on Hobby Lobby) to come true. She argued that Alito's assurances of a narrow decision in Hobby Lobby were certain to be trashed, and she was right. Sotomayor wrote scathingly in dissent of Wheaton College:

Wheaton is a not-for-profit religious institution. The case is not related to the Hobby-Lobby situation, so they're not breaking any pledge.

"Thirty-one* states allow all qualified citizens to carry concealed weapons. In those states, homosexuals should embark on organized efforts to become comfortable with guns, learn to use them safely and carry them. They should set up Pink Pistols task forces, sponsor shooting courses and help homosexuals get licensed to carry. And they should do it in a way that gets as much publicity as possible. "

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

But the ruling doesn't say religion holds a trump card that always wins. Instead, it says that courts need to weigh how much of a burden a particular law imposes on religious belief against the government's need to achieve the law's goals.

In this case, the majority said that the balance tilted in favor of the religious objectors, in part because the government, as Kennedy wrote, had another way to achieve its goal. Often, that may not be the case.

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

Originally Posted by Stardreamer

The Wheaton College ruling is a temporary measure that is still not final AND does not say what you say it does.

That the decision is "temporary" matters not.

On Monday, the court established a line it said it would never cross. On Thursday, it crossed that line. Obviously, the court was never serious about trying to limit the scope of the Hobby Lobby decision to just contraceptives or even just health care.

Originally Posted by Sausy

I think the problem is just how much leeway do certain corporations get here.. which after the decision proved troublesome as a rash of other, more sweeping religious test cases appear to be coming up for the Court. Many of which would even fight third party coverage they would not directly have to provide... even gay rights. If this is what they want, the court would be out of line to rule for them.

Yes, exactly.

The court is telegraphing a thought process in Hobby Lobby and Wheaton College that the religious rights of rich people who own companies are more important than the rights of the people who work for them.

That is very, very troubling.

Originally Posted by Kulindahr

Wheaton is a not-for-profit religious institution. The case is not related to the Hobby-Lobby situation, so they're not breaking any pledge.

Not sure how you can say the cases are not related. Wheaton College is a not-for-profit religious institution and Hobby Lobby is a for-profit religious institution, according to the Supreme Court. The rules now equally apply to both.

The court ruled on Monday that churches like Hobby Lobby did not need to provide contraceptive coverage because Obamacare gives religions a way out in the form of delegating that responsibility to some third party. On Thursday, the court ruled that churches like Hobby Lobby and Wheaton College did not need even to delegate responsibility to the third party. The Thursday decision completely overruled the argument from Monday, and greatly expanded an already expansive decision.

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

The Wheaton ruling does no such thing, the responsibility is STILL passed to a third party, the court simply said they didn't have to jump through the hoops the HHS set up for that transfer to happen. They still have to inform the government of their objection and the government will likely have to take the ball from there so in essence instead of making the college formally make that transfer the HHS will likely be doing it for them.

Spirits, folks need to settle down and quit listening to the spin merchants. Both sides are trying to spin this to their advantage in the up coming elections but the Left is in high gear and most of it is flat out false fear mongering to stir up votes. The experts still haven't sorted out all the ramifications of this ruling yet but most of the spin on the left and the right is clearly hype.

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

Sorry Stardreamer but if you think this is a narrow ruling, you're fooling yourself.
Mark my words, this ruling WILL be used to go after discrimination laws. I can only hope there will be enough liberal judges to stop that from happening.

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

Originally Posted by Ninja108

Sorry Stardreamer but if you think this is a narrow ruling, you're fooling yourself.
Mark my words, this ruling WILL be used to go after discrimination laws. I can only hope there will be enough liberal judges to stop that from happening.

It may not be as narrow as the justices hoped but it NOT a free for all that is being portrayed as. I've seen some people saying this will lead to public stonings for spirit's sake. The RFRA is not a get out of jail for free card for religion, it has been around for over a decade and none of that stuff has happened on the individual level so why is corporations going to be different? The worst I see coming out of it is maybe some of those photographers and bakers who want to not serve gays might get some relief but it is highly unlikely, one because those largely state laws and RFRA doesn't apply and two RFRA does not have the power to OVERTURN laws the state can show compelling interest in. The state has to show that the law serves a compelling interest (a high bar but not insurmountable for anti-discrimination laws) and that it has taken the least intrusive method to apply it. Most discrimination can be challenged under the Constitution which automatically overrules RFRA which is just a federal statute.

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

Originally Posted by Ninja108

Sorry Stardreamer but if you think this is a narrow ruling, you're fooling yourself.
Mark my words, this ruling WILL be used to go after discrimination laws. I can only hope there will be enough liberal judges to stop that from happening.

The ruling in Martinez v Christian Legal Society gives me hope that it will not happen.

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

Originally Posted by Ninja108

Sorry Stardreamer but if you think this is a narrow ruling, you're fooling yourself.Mark my words, this ruling WILL be used to go after discrimination laws. I can only hope there will be enough liberal judges to stop that from happening.

Gordon president D. Michael Lindsay was among 14 religious leaders who wrote to the White House requesting an exemption to an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating in their hiring based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

People trying to wring advantage from something do not a court decision make.

"Thirty-one* states allow all qualified citizens to carry concealed weapons. In those states, homosexuals should embark on organized efforts to become comfortable with guns, learn to use them safely and carry them. They should set up Pink Pistols task forces, sponsor shooting courses and help homosexuals get licensed to carry. And they should do it in a way that gets as much publicity as possible. "

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

^ Yeah, I saw that earlier today.

While it is ridiculous, it does illustrate what a stupid decision was Hobby Lobby. If a corporation can be exempt from the law just because it has a "limited number" of owners, then it follows logically that all sorts of organizations/groups/companies/whatever should also be exempt from obeying all sorts of laws for reasons of religious conviction.

Re: Supreme Court Rules Corporations Can Have Religious Beliefs

^ That judge is WRONG!!! The guy who is talking is a PERSON. Therefore, he could be considered to be a corporation.

"Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking." -The Scarecrow, WIZARD OF OZ, 1939Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education, to under-performing schools: DROP DEAD.Make, for a man, a fire - and he'll be warm for a few hours. Set a man afire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.Satire is meant to ridicule power. If you are laughing at people who are hurting, it's not satire, it's bullying. - Terry Pratchett